A Different Star
by Vol lady
Summary: Jarrod mourns for a client who was different, and who has been hanged.


Jarrod mourns for a client who was different, and who has been hanged.

A Different Star

Quiet. So silent, all he could hear was the soft mooing of the cattle who were miles away. Only a soft breeze rustled the leaves on the trees not as far away, almost adding to the silence rather than the sound.

There was no moon, so the sky was filled with millions of stars, most of them clustered in that great Milky Way but many more scattered all over the sky. He could almost see the outlines of those trees by the starlight, there were so many lights in the sky.

Soft sounds, soft sights, soft scent of night-blooming flowers wafting through the air.

How dare the world be this sweet and wonderful tonight?

"You've strayed awful far from home, Pappy," Nick's voice interrupted the disturbing peace Jarrod felt surrounded with.

"What are you doing here?" Jarrod asked.

"Looking for you," Nick said as he came up beside his brother. "Mother and Audra were getting worried. And heck, so were Heath and I. We didn't want you to go walking off into the night and never come back."

"Sorry," Jarrod said.

"You wanna talk about it?"

"No," Jarrod said.

"You know you did your best."

"It wasn't good enough."

"What more could you have done?"

"I don't know. I missed something." Jarrod shook his head. "I don't want to talk about it, Nick. Let me alone."

"No, I don't think so," Nick said.

Jarrod growled, "Nick, I swear – "

"You're out here feeling guilty over something you've got no reason to feel guilty over, and I'm not gonna let you just wallow in it. That's the trouble with you, Jarrod. You put too much of your soul into saving people, and some of them just can't be saved. Some of them don't deserve to be saved."

Jarrod turned a glare on Nick so fiery Nick could almost see it in the dark. "Jubal Stovall _did_ deserve to be saved," Jarrod said, ready to argue as hard as he had to with his younger brother.

"Well, now," Nick said, "I didn't know him as well as you did, so I'll take your word for it. But you sulking out here alone isn't going to do anything for him or you."

Jarrod shook the anger out of his head. "I'm not sulking. I'm just trying to sort things out."

"Did you really think Stovall was innocent?" Nick asked.

"He _was_ innocent," Jarrod said. "I had the proof and I laid it out there, and the jury just ignored it."

"And you appealed, and the courts turned you down, and Stovall hanged today," Nick laid it all out there for him. "None of that was your fault."

"Stovall is still dead," Jarrod said. "He shouldn't be."

"But he was somebody the town of Pittsville didn't know how to take, so they got rid of him," Nick said, giving sound to more of what he knew his brother was thinking.

Jarrod was silent for a while before he said, "Something like that."

"That's not your fault, Jarrod."

"Isn't it?"

"No, it isn't, but you take it on yourself that you couldn't get anybody to listen to you and judge the man's case on its merits, rather than on who Stovall was, or what he was."

Jarrod was silent again for a while before he said, "Something like that."

"Not your fault, Jarrod," Nick said.

Jarrod sighed and looked up at the sky. "Look at those stars, Nick. They all look alike from here, but if we could look at them one by one, up close, we'd see that they're all different. But together they make up a universe that's so beautiful, so compelling. We can't look at each other down here the same way. We can't see that we're all different but we make up a world that's beautiful and compelling. No, we _won't_ see it, and Jubal Stovall hanged today because we won't see it."

Nick heaved a sigh himself. "I won't say that I understand how people are, Jarrod. I won't say that I understand how Jubal Stovall was. I just know that sometimes you can't fight people, especially when they're judging other people."

"People they think are different," Jarrod completed the thought. "Jubal Stovall was different, and I won't say that I understood him either, because I never did, but he didn't deserve to hang. He didn't kill that storekeeper. He didn't deserve to hang."

"But it's not your fault that he did."

Jarrod looked at his brother. Even though he couldn't see him very well in the darkness, he tried to. He tried hard to burn his gaze into him and make him see what he saw. "It was my job to see that the jury judged the man for what he did or didn't do, not for who he was or he wasn't. I didn't do my job."

"Jarrod, maybe it was them who didn't do theirs," Nick said. "You gotta put this behind you. You gotta come back to the house. You're nearly two miles from home."

"So are you, Nick."

"Looking for you. Jarrod, you can't just lose yourself out here in the dark because you lost your case."

Jarrod looked up at the stars again and gave a sigh. "I need to take some time to mourn Jubal Stovall, and mourn a sad society who can't tolerate anybody who's different. Somebody has to mourn those things, Nick."

Nick put a hand on his older brother's shoulder. "Then if that's what it is keeping you out here in the dark, go ahead and mourn, but come back home. Soon. Or I'll be back out here with a wagon to haul you home."

Jarrod nodded.

Satisfied his older brother was all right, Nick gave him a slap on the back and started back to the house. Jarrod listened to Nick's footsteps disappearing into the night, and once the sound was gone, he looked up into the sky again.

He'd never understand Jubal Stovall. He knew the man was different in a way ordinary people did not like, but unlike the people who were on the jury who condemned him to die, he accepted the man as a human being who deserved equal treatment under the law. He would never understand, and something in him could not accept, the men on the jury who condemned him to die, not because he committed a crime. Because he was different.

All those stars in all that heaven. One of them had to belong to Jubal Stovall. Just as there had to be a star for everyone who was ordinary, there had to be one for everyone who was different. _I'm sorry I couldn't get them to want to find yours, Jubal, but someday_ , Jarrod thought, _I'll make ordinary people want to find the star for every person who's different. That's why I'm here. That's why I'm a lawyer._

It wasn't enough for Jubal Stovall, but maybe, someday, it would be enough for someone else, and for Jarrod Barkley.

The End


End file.
